March 13, 2010

Even though I am kind of a hippie — an evolved hippie —I was amused this rant from Friday's show, which I listened to in podcast form just now. What set him off was this dreamy Nancy Pelosi murmur:

PELOSI: Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or, eh, a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance, or that people could start a business and be entrepreneurial and take risk but not [be] job-locked because a child has asthma or someone in the family is bipolar. You name it. Any condition is job-blocking.

Now, I think it's really important that under the current system, for health insurance reasons alone, people stay put in jobs instead of moving freely and efficiently into work that would be better for them. Insurance and work shouldn't be linked like that. I would love to find a way out of that problem, even though I loathe and dread the Democrats' heath care bill. Conservatives who like free markets and economic liberty ought to care about de-linking career and insurance choices. But what set Rush off was the kind of work that Pelosi used as her examples. You could be an artist or a photographer or a writer.

RUSH: So this is what the Democrats are fighting for. They're fighting for you not to have a job and still have health care so you can pursue your entrepreneurial risk of writing, painting, taking pictures.

Because it's never an actual job to write, paint, or take photographs. In Rush's mind, artists have just got to be freeloaders.

It's just such a pain in the rear end to have to have a job. It's so damn mean of this country to require people to have a job. It stifles people. It stifles creativity and economic growth to require people to have a job, to have health care. What a country. Man, are we horribly rotten mean to people. So Pelosi says go ahead, health care will allow people to quit their jobs and write, take pictures and paint while the rest of us work to pay for it. While the rest of us work to pay for these... never mind.

[AFTER A BREAK] This is what Democrats are fighting for. Nancy Pelosi, this idiot Pelosi, thinks this country is Woodstock or Moscow or something. [PLAYS PELOSI AGAIN.] So they're fighting for people to be able to quit work while the rest of us pay for their health care while they go out and be artists and photographers and tend to bipolar kids with asthma or what have you, and we're going to pay for this. This idiot thinks this is Woodstock. I mean, it's right out of the San Francisco mentality. It's just breathtaking here....

... I mean, she thinks of the country as Woodstock or as San Francisco.

...So quit work. Indulge your fantasies. Become an artist or documentarian, photographer, what have you -- and let the rest of us pay for your health care bill. And, by the way, while you're out there finding yourself, if you happen to get pregnant and want to have an abortion, no worries! We'll pay for that, too. But I want to focus on something here. "Think of an economy where people could be an artist or a photographer or a writer without worrying about keeping their day job in order to have health insurance." Now, one of the things that Obama has promised is that you will not lose your coverage. If you like it, you'll be able to keep it. Here is Pelosi admitting: If you're able to quit your job and have "free," quote-unquote, health coverage, who is hell is providing it for you?

I thought people were supposed to buy health insurance and the reforms (if they were any good) would make it possible to afford to buy health insurance individually, even if you had a pre-existing condition.

Pelosi inasmuch as confirmed single-payer, public option, universal health care in this quote, while she's attempting to establish solidarity with the nation'sfreeloaders! She's encouraging the freeloaders to freeload. Isn't it such a shame that this country requires people to work to have health care? How inhumane is that? So we're going to enable you to quit! If you want to dabble sitting there writing things, taking pictures or painting garbage that nobody will ever be able to understand, go for it!...

Art can't be work in Limbaugh's mind: Those writers and photographers and painters aren't going to be buying their insurance. As Limbaugh sees it, Pelosi is sending out a coded message to the nation's hippies: We will have taxpayer-funded health care as a government benefit in the end.

Just move to Haight-Ashbury. Just be done with it. Move out there and start painting murals or whatever you want to do, and all of your neighbors will come up and pay for your health care for you.

156 comments:

I know exactly where Rush is coming from. I always wanted a farm, ever since I was a little kid. I finally bought one when I was 27 years old. Unfortunately, 40 acres was all that I could afford. More unfortunately was the fact that you can't make a living off of 40 acres, at least not in Wisconsin. So, I kept my job, and farmed on the side. If you want something badly enough, you can work for it. I did a lot of part time work, also. Life is good, work for it.

The current system, in which employment and health insurance are linked, is not the product of the market, but rather a response to federal tax law, dating to the late forties or the early fifties.

The cost of individual (that is, non-group) health insurance is prohibitive. Call up your insurance agent and get a quote for you and your spouse if you were to leave your employer and strike out on your own. It's a jaw-dropping number, even if you were to take on a fairly high deductible.

Most of us a shielded from the real cost of health insurance, which is part of the reason that demand for reform has been fairly low.

If Rush Limbaugh and the coward Republicans were really serious, they could stop the discussion today. The Health atrocity bill would be dead in the water.

Rush, Beck, Gingrich, the Republican Senators and Congressmen, Hannity, and all the rest should get together and expose the Rolls Royce health care plan the legislators have at our expense. Enumerate in excruciating detail the extreme generous coverage they have.

Then blast them from every side for exempting themselves from thehealth care atrocity bill they expect us to suffer under. Instead of getting the public righteously mad as hell, Rush and the rest would rather entertain us with their witty repartee. The Republicans would rather keep their gilded health insurance.

The servants get the Rolls, we, the masters, will wind up with the Yugo on crates.

I think what riles Rush is that so many young people get this romantic notion that they are artists when they don't have a clue, don't realise the amount of work being a real artist entails and are content to go off into some dreamy state while others pay for their fantasy.I don't quite get the 'photographer' part, if you're going to be a professional photographer you need a lot of expensive equipment plus computer and peripherals, if you can afford that, then presumably you have the wherewithal for health ins.

I think his point is spot on. It might not apply in every case, there are successful painters, photographers, writers, etc., but for every one that makes it, there are thousands of more wannabes.

And it really does sound like Nancy is saying, hey, in the future you won't have to worry about being productive and paying your way. We'll get everyone else to do it for you. You just sit back and indulge yourself and stop worrying about providing for yourself. In the new plan, you're not responsible for that.

Honestly, can you imagine a politician from Nebraska saying that? It's Nancy Pelosi talking to (at least a subset) of her San Francisco constituency. She's pandering to her base. Unfortunately, she's pandering with our money, which is very unbecoming in a politician. The fundamental concept of people providing for themselves and paying their own way has to be at the heart of any successful society. Without that concept ruling, at least in principle, any society is doomed. As they say about the problem with socialism, eventually you run out of other people's money.

Nancy Pelosi sounds a little dreamy to me. Obamacare legislation is about diet, not diabetes she said last week in a speech to the National Association of Counties:

"You’ve heard about the controversies within the bill, the process about the bill, one or the other. But I don’t know if you have heard that it is legislation for the future, not just about health care for America, but about a healthier America, it’s about diet, not diabetes. It’s going to be very, very exciting.

“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it !!

To be fair, it was Pelosi who used the phrase "worrying about keeping their day job". In other words, in Pelosi's mind one of the benefits of government funded (e.g. everybody else funded) health insurance is that it would enable people to indulge themselves in artistic work that pays very little.

Yes of course some artist's jobs are 'real jobs' that provide real incomes--but in that case, there's no need for millions of other tax-payers with boring jobs to subsidize the artists.

So by all means, quit your day job and pursue your artistic dreams -- seriously -- just don't expect the rest of us to pick up the tab.

Pelosi is full of crap, this bill is terrible for the bohemian types. They're going to be forced, under penalty of law, to buy a $500 a month health insurance plan instead of paying rent on their loft or buying puppet-making supplies or whatever the fuck it is that hippies spend their money on. And of course the hippies themselves are too dumb to realize this.

Rush is right. "Artists" have always needed a "Patrone" to support them, what else is new. As for the hippies, they were dirty, anti-social, drugged out idiots, some of whom survived to become Congressional Representatives from RI.

Some hippies have outgrown their need to be a child forever and have become useful citizens, providing for themselves. Some like Speaker Pelosi have never outgrown anything except her need to lord it over everyone else.

Rush's point is that there is work without which we would perish and that the other endeavors only exist while the first is taken care of by either yourself or others. Rush's work is also nonessential, so his point is: that's fine as long as you provide for yourself by doing your own essential work or bargaining what you do with someone else who does the essential for you.

Socialism never asks you to make that transaction. It assumes others will for you, so you can be as unproductive and empty-handed at the bargaining table as you want; to sit under the protection of the tribe, painting on the wall while others do the hunting, building, and cooking for you even though you are quite able to contribute. When enough of the tribe follows your example, because it's easier, the tribe starves and the survivors need to rebuild everything from scratch, having lost all of what they were, a forgotten civilization. These are all around the world in various stages. How many more do we have to suffer through.

The artists have a support system that traditionally is rich patrons. Pelosi just did the socialist switcheroo and made Nancy and her Congress persons into our Santa Clauses using a BankChinacard and plans to totally do away with private wealth. That is great. What me worry? China loves being our slaves...right...tell me again that those sweet loving lies are true.

I think that one thing that Rush often does well is to cut through the rhetoric on esp. the left to what the politicians are really saying.

The reason that many seem to be questioning Pelosi's intelligence right now is that the country is mired down in the biggest recession of most of our lifetimes, where everyone else is having to tighten their belts, and she is suggesting that it would be good if even more of the population went on the public done. This isn't the time for this sort of wishful thinking.

I am sure that most of us have things that they would rather be doing than contributing to the economy by doing our real jobs. Painting, pottery, and photography are, for the most part luxuries, and that is that we cannot afford right now. If you want to do them as hobbies, then fine. Just don't ask those who actually do produce wealth in this country to pay from them in the midst of this recession.

Thoreau was wealthy from hard work with the family business (making pencils) before he went to the cabin at the edge of town and wrote Walden. He also went to the family home for dinner every night, so he was a rich freeloader.

Artists without patrons are a freakin' disaster.

Most of the artists Pelosi is talking about are low talent hobbyists...and I don't think we need to subsidize that for a living.

"Because it's never an actual job to write, paint, or take photographs."

Pelosi specifically refers to the fact that people "keep their day job" precisely because most often the art and photographs and writing you produce generates no income because no one wants to pay you for it.

"Actual jobs" are those you get paid for. All else are hobbies (or 'passions' if you must).

I watched that show on PBS. There was a lot of stuff that wasn't shown. Have you ever tried to lift a 20' 30' log by yourself? Also, I don't think he was cooking his food in that fireplace that he built.

Does anyone desire that their son or daughter walk away from productive work to pursue their bliss and become a dependency on others who would also like to follow their bliss, but now have to support both themselves and your offspring? Why would we want to have more dependency?

Where is the joy, the beauty, the humanity in a society with a large group living off the terminally yoked who are never free to do much more than support the blissfully useless.

The irony here is that Rush is one of the people who took a creative activity that a lot of people are doing for free (e.g. this blog) and turned it into a productive (and in his case immensely profitable) exercise. Rush is the hippie who followed his muse and turned AM talk radio into a gold mine. Someone point that out to Nancy. If you pass heathcare, more people will be able to follow their inner Rush Limbaugh.

And BTW, breaking the healthcare/job connection is one of the lead items of every conservative plan that I know of. The connection is one of the huge distortions of the system and is a poster child for the law of unintended consequences. It is one of the ways we know that no plan will ever work out like they think it will.

First post in years where I'm inclined to agree with you and you seem dead-set on missing Der Limblown's point entirely - albeit lately revealed in the last of the umpteen quotations you posted.

"If you want to dabble sitting there writing things, taking pictures or painting garbage that nobody will ever be able to understand, go for it!"

With this, it seems clear that his problem is with unprofitable art, not just with creating art.

Although, he's still an asshole and you're still right to sense that his frustration with the promotion of unprofitable art does bleed over into his general contempt for the the limitless nature of creative expression more broadly.

I realize that both parties have their role in ag subsidies, but do farmers -- those who grow more corn than people want, for instance -- fall under the same scorn that those in this thread have for artists?

Then any old job generates enough money to pay for medical care, just as any old job generates enough money to pay for food.

Doctors used to accomodate that by varying fees; there was a joke then that the hardest course in medical school was "Presentation of the Bill" where you grossly overcharged rich people to take up the slack.

Any old job generates enough money to take care of medical care now, only it's diverted before it hits your paycheck. The third party payer though creates unchecked consumption of medical care.

I've been outraged about farm subsidies for a long time. Now, I will tell you when I became aware of the outrage called art subsidies. In St. Paul, if you're on Warner Road, right next to the Mississippi, and you're traveling west from Mounds Park, you notice some wooden planks secured to the cement wall (above are the railroad tracks). It's at the first road you could take to go up to Kellogg Ave. That artist, in 1973 (the same year I bought my farm) was paid $10,000 to put those wooden boards on that wall. That year I made $10,800 for a years worth of work.

I agree with what I think Rush is saying--Pelosi is basically promising all of our artistic wannabes that the nation will support them financially, take the worry out of the whole enterprise. So you can pretend to be starving artist, but you won't have to really be one. All part of the Romantic movement that informs our New Left of today, the notion of the bohemian artist.

Yeah, we need to subsidize everyone's health care so more people can sit around and write poems about how small their welfare checks are. Maybe they will praise Dear Leader from whom all beneficence flows while they are at it.

Un-fricken-believable.

You know, we all want to be a lot of things that we don't have the talent, drive or luck to become. Who DOESN'T want to be a rock star? Most of us wanted to be firemen at some point in our childhoods as well. That doesn't mean we have a right to force everyone else into paying our bills while we practice sliding up and down the poll in our parent's basement.

My husband is an artist. We pay for individual health insurance coverage.

As for artists keeping their day jobs, that's pretty much the norm until they start making money at being artists. I think the idea that you can just do whatever without having to think about how you'll support yourself is the idea to which Rush objects.

He may not appreciate it's "limitless nature" which would include how bad it can be...

I would say that this, right here, sums up the problem with conservative philosophy, or at least as it's defined here.

One thing Bag O', and anybody else, can never do, is regulate and define opinion. Opinions are varied, they're limitless, they are as difficult to find consensus on as any human quality.

But Bag O' and the others here constantly fall into this trap of thinking that, not only can and should opinions be universalized, but that they can be broken down into such overly, mind-numbingly simplified, assignments as "good" and "bad".

Thank God that human nature, human curiosity, and human expression is more varied and infinite than you or Rush Limblown will ever grasp - despite his attempts to try to do so. It is why after 4 decades, decadent conservative political dominance is finally failing, and it's starting right here at its epicenter in the "culture war" that they declared and fought so valiantly until finding out, oh so quixotically, that they lacked much understanding of the fundamental nature of human culture in the first place.

Allen, I'm not going to defend that kind of public art when done with public money. If a private foundation wants to put up that kind of money for boards on a concrete wall, that's fine with me, but the public shouldn't be dropping that kind of cash on art.

On the other hand, art subsidies are small potatoes compared with sports subsidies.

Why should I have to, O Outreached (Over-reaching?) Avatar of W.? If you don't see hubris as one of those "bad" qualities of human nature that Bag O reminds us of, then what's the point.

If you don't see a love of and paranoid obsession with power as one of those "bad" qualities, then what's the point?

If you don't see the opportunistic demonization of academia and the media that started with that deluded paranoid Nixon, and continued through to this very day with Gingrich and the ignoramus Palin (and cheerled daily by their lackeys here), as a denunciation of the same ancient, non-governmental human institutions that conservatives pretend to respect, then what the fuck is the point?

What is the point, Alex, of showing you what your faith in ignorance, mythology and the propaganda of bad arguments prevents you from seeing?

Ritmo couldn't be more wrong. Leftist comtempt for/control of art and artists has a lot longer history than any "conservative mindset" or whatever all those extraneous words were supposed to be identifying.Since (most) conservatives see each person as an individual (and therefore every artist as inherently free to create) art and conservatism are in harmony. Liberals believe that all individuals must serve or subjugate themselves to the State. As such they routinely destroy, ban and censor works of art that don't serve their narrow political goals. Hatred of literature is a hallmark of Leftism everywhere in the world. Find me any "Collectivist" society anywhere and I'll show you the poets prisons. Never fails.

Wow, we do live on different planets. On yours apparently everyone is correct on all things or at least not wrong. That sounds nice.

Well, at the least, it should sound sane. But if you prefer to draw no distinction between FACTS (and their correctness or lack thereof) and OPINION (which doesn't lend itself to such concrete judgments, then I hope you enjoy the insanity and lack of accountability that such a conceptual worldview affords you.

If for you an opinion cannot be perceived and judged differently than a fact, then perhaps it shouldn't be any surprise that what you see as a fact is what a sane person regards as an opinion. After all, you don't note a difference between the two things.

Where is art the most restricted and repressed? Leftist societies. You can't control the masses if they can express any damned idea they want. Hell, in Europe, you can't even draw a damned cartoon of a guy who's been dead for centuries. And of course we have the wonderfully free expression in places like Communist China, Vietnam, Venezuela.

I think the issue is not whether or not being an artist or writer is considered work, but rather if one chooses to purse these endeavors they do so at their own risk.

The real notion is of risk aversion vs. entrepreneurship and individual responsibility.

Sure, go ahead, quit your job, take up the pen or brush, but in doing so, you have made a choice with regards to the competition of resources and Mr. Limbaugh is saying, "The risk is yours. The responsibility is yours, as you have shown that you are otherwise able to take care of yourself Why should the State (read: taxpayers) fund your fantasy."

However, it should be pointed out that both Mrs. Pelosi and Mr. Limbaugh have made the same error in interpreting the so called "Health Care Reform."

In fact, those who are artists and writers, and such, will be forced to purchase health care insurance that they may not otherwise have chosen and in failing do so, expose themselves to fines and incarceration.

The Moral of the Story: Be an Artist. Be sure to Impoverished. Otherwise, you risk going to Jail.

I thought China was capitalist? Wasn't that the point? I thought the lack of aggression we showed them was to encourage that entrepreneurial spirit, and that freedom derives from economic liberty? I thought their openness to business and economic growth was going to free them. At least, that's how the argument went.

What is this business of judging opinions in terms of their "equality" to other opinions? Equal means the same.

Now, I can say that two different opinions are equal or unequal in terms of this property that they hold or that. One opinion may be more popular, another more pleasant, what have you. But if they are different opinions, they are, by definition, not equal.

"I thought their openness to business and economic growth was going to free them."

You don't think it has increased freedoms?

China is both communist and capitalist. That is "reality." But if you are interested in freely expressing your art there, you will notice the little communist on your left shoulder holding a gun to your head. If you want to do manufacturing there, it's a new country from 30 years ago.

You said "Communist China" is a "leftist society", Bag' O. If I'm not mistaken, you think of left and right in primarily economic terms. But then you said it's freer economically than it is politically. Make up your mind.

Sarah Palin's war on the pedestrian nature of human language and popular American expressions parallels that of the war fought by the Communist Chinese government on the culture, language, and thought of Chinese citizens.

So does the stringent nature of her opinion on the supposed obviousness of what's right and what's wrong.

Ok. So I have only one (1) "core belief", and my only strong opinions pertain to what is right and what is wrong.

Any more goofy assumptions you want to throw out there?

Actually my strongest set of opinions expressed here pertain to what I think is obviously stupid and what is not.

Perhaps you could keep that set from becoming a "core belief", Bag O. But to do so you would have to try being a bit more logical, though. And as someone who once went on the record offering your testicles to save us from terrorism, you have a steep climb uphill to convince me to have any faith in your ability to be logical.

Never forget Pelosi Galore's district is Haight-Ashbury, ground zero of the whole hippie thing. She comes from the safest of safe districts where all the airheads think alike and do and think exactly what Kos and Puffington tell them.

Of course, she wants these people funded and they will always vote Democrat. That's been the plan since Harry Hopkins said, "Tax, tax, tax; spend, spend, spend; elect, elect, elect". The more drones on the federal dole, the closer they are to permanent one-party rule.

Also, as far as art goes, there are more artists than art. I worked at a firm legendary (or notorious) for its collection of "modern art". Most of it looked like it came off somebody's refrigerator.

Rush is taking the side of the working stiff who will have to pay for Little Nancy's drones. And anybody who's ever worked for a living and seen the bite federal taxes take out of his/her paycheck should be on his side in this - which most people here, Ritmo/Montagne/whomever aside, seem to be.

I'm sure Rush has no problem with people employed as artists, photographers or writers, or with people who do this freelance while also meeting their responsibilities to themselves and their families. His issue is with people indulging their proclivities (whatever they may be) at public expense. Pelosi's "job-locking" is a legitimate concern, but there are ways to deal with that without turning the entire medical and insurance industries upside down with who-knows-what unintended consequences.

I recall seeing a post on this website awhile back that showed what Rush Limbaugh's bedroom looks like, in a house he is selling. After seeing that picture, I think it's safe to say that art and aesthetics are two things (one thing?) that Rush has little interest in or knowledge about. Plus, I suspect he's bitter because he knows that if he ever walked into an opening at any decent museum or gallery, most of the people in the room would look upon him with the contempt he deserves.

In fact, those who are artists and writers, and such, will be forced to purchase health care insurance that they may not otherwise have chosen and in failing do so, expose themselves to fines and incarceration.

Except that there will ultimately be subsidies for those who cannot afford those premiums, and those subsidies are, of course, paid for by the rest of us who do have real jobs.

But was Pelosi talking about making it possible for writers to buy insurance more effectively?

Many writers don't have health insurance. That's one of the things that professional writer's associations offer... the chance to buy into a group plan. But a whole lot of people chose not to pay out of pocket.

Unless Pelosi's remark came in the context of people paying for their own insurance but at the lower rates that companies get, then Limbaugh isn't wrong to portray it as a government subsidy for non-producers and moochers.

I write, and I hope to be published and I hope to make decent money... but I'd love to do a thousand other creative things I'm not very good at, if I could afford to do them. The writer's life... an artists life... who wouldn't find long days of unfettered creativity delightful?

And there really is this idea out there that a writer is something particularly special, that an artist is particularly special, and that these special people are different from other laborers and ought not have to actually have any relationship to supply and demand.

Because you know what? Artists and writers who produce what is in demand can afford to quit their day job.

But popular "art" and popular writing is produced by workmanlike people who, frankly, stink of the shop.

Plus, I suspect he's bitter because he knows that if he ever walked into an opening at any decent museum or gallery, most of the people in the room would look upon him with the contempt he deserves.

LOL - Rush is one of the happiest public figures out there. He has been the subject of the elite's contempt for decades now, and bitterness is not part of his make up. He is optimistic and has faith in American society's ability to muddle through and succeed.

People who write about how bitter and hateful Rush is never bother to listen to him before spouting their preconceptions.

"and it's starting right here at its epicenter in the "culture war" that they declared and fought so valiantly until finding out, oh so quixotically, that they lacked much understanding of the fundamental nature of human culture in the first place."

Human culture is NASCAR category romances.

Who is it doesn't understand the fundamental nature of culture?

Art or music or literature that appeals to essential humanity is popular art and music and literature.

All else is an attempt to separate yourself and explain why you're better than others, more cultured, higher class. It's exclusionary rather than resonant.

But it will get you awards and prizes from other people who want to prove they have more refined taste, are more cultured, and higher class.

Marxist-leninist rule is so wonderful for the artist. Free everything...and no interference from authority, ever. Why did't we think of it first? We let the silly Russians have all the fun for 80 years. But the Iron man Obama will bring it's blessings down upon us or he will kill us trying. What a heroic Humanicus-Obamacus way to live. Now all of you people who work to produce life's necessaries be sure to go to work tomorrow. So what that everything is free now ...work harder and harder you free people because we expect it.

Here's the thing: imagine someone with two job offers, one with a full benefits package but paying $30,000 a year, and the other with no benefits but paying $45,000 a year. I suspect that a lot of people would take the 45K job and then gripe about the lack of health insurance, rather than take the $30K job.

The problem with employer-based health insurance, and especially with it being tax-free and the actual costs being hidden, is that people don't recognize health insurance as an expense that one can choose to spend money on, like food or housing, but as some kind of intangible non-monetary benefit that the "benefits fairy" bestows on them.

And on top of that, when someone decides to leave their $30K benefits-providing day job, they don't assess whether they can earn enough on their own to cover their total compensation, cash pay plus benefits, but just assess whether they can pay the bills, and then moan about how unjust society is.

As for preexisting conditions, I read somewhere that there are insurers who offer coverage that protects you both from actual doctor and hospital charges, but insures you against being "uninsurable" in the future.

Ann attempts to read Rush's mind and divine his beliefs, to wit: artists can't be workers, or that art can't be work.

Let's say her attempt is successful, and that's exactly what he thinks.

In this, Rush is absolutely correct.

Art is not work, and artists, when they are creating art, are not working, WHEN work is defined not merely as the expenditure of effort, but as effort that is valued by an external entity.

The practice of art is "work" in a crudely physical sense--the expenditure of energy. But that is not the definition that pertains here. Rush speaks of "work" in a context of people having to pay for things, specifically for healthcare. Thus "work" in this discussion means gainful work, effort that gets recognized as valuable by another person or a market by being purchased, or by the fruits of this effort being purchased.

I have a friend who is a successful sculptor. The actual sculpting is the most effortful aspect of what he does, physically and mentally. But it is not "work" as Rush is using the term for this particular discussion. SELLING his sculptures is work, even though now that he is fairly well known, the marketing and shmoozing and deal-closing is much less effortful than the sculpting.

Precision about how we use words can keep an Althouse from ginning up a high dudgeon about what she perceives as a slight to artists and an evidence of Rush's antipathy toward art. I would venture that Rush lauds successful artists, i.e. those who can make a good living, like my friend, without being on the NEA dole.

I don't think Rush hates or denigrates art; rather, he is exasperated by idiots who conflate effort with productivity.

The writer's life...an artists life...who wouldn't find long days of unfettered creativity delightful?

Ever read any biographies of writers? The ingenious rationalizations, the prodigious waste of limited energy, the pursuit of every imaginable folly, anything, anything to get away from the joys of creativity.

Probably the one who knocks the fact that the president's mother was an anthropologist.

Art or music or literature that appeals to essential humanity is popular art and music and literature.

Either that or it is of the variety that appeals to better marketing and more influential sales reps.

All else is an attempt to separate yourself and explain why you're better than others, more cultured, higher class. It's exclusionary rather than resonant.

Oh boy! More man-of-the-people, salt-of-the-earth populist bullshit from the right! The same right that looks down on every non-Western culture that it can find! (While at the same time never pontificating on the nature of human "universals").

But it will get you awards and prizes from other people who want to prove they have more refined taste, are more cultured, and higher class.

Right. Because I, not you, have been the one to introduce the idea of "more... refined" cultural tastes and distinctions of "class" into the discussion. Oh, wait...

Stop projecting, Synova. Or else I'll have to dig up W.F. Buckley quotes that defend Southern whites as being culturally "superior" to blacks.

It's pretty curious that Synova can declare the anti-elitist credentials of the right based on historically recent pandering to NASCAR fans, while the genesis of their movement lies in stuff from barely 50 years ago like this:

"The central question that emerges . . . is whether the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail, politically and culturally, in areas in which it does not prevail numerically? The sobering answer is Yes–the White community is so entitled because, for the time being, it is the advanced race. It is not easy, and it is unpleasant, to adduce statistics evidencing the cultural superiority of White over Negro: but it is a fact that obtrudes, one that cannot be hidden by ever-so-busy egalitarians and anthropologists.

"National Review believes that the South's premises are correct. . . . It is more important for the community, anywhere in the world, to affirm and live by civilized standards, than to bow to the demands of the numerical majority."

But now I hear they've got NASCAR and fast-food chains to rally behind so I suppose there is no longer any fear that the racist legacy of the right will taint its movement as "elitist".

Since the elephant symbolizes the virtue of memory, I suggest that modern Republicans such as Synova change the GOP icon from just any elephant to an elephant that is in the process of actively undergoing a lobotomy.

Nice to know that ripcic doesn't hide behind the facade of populism to cover-up his and Buckley's right-wing racism. Thanks for coming out into the open, man. I appreciate the honesty of you showing your true colors, so to speak.

The irony here is that it doesn't dawn on him that had he grown up in a culture that enslaved him and other whites, maybe his black owners and masters would have had the luxury of setting their minds to the pursuit of exclusively cultural endeavors. Perhaps over time, they'd become not only "superior" but they'd establish a legacy that was "off the charts superior", while the white man buttered his bread and plowed his fields.

But of course, ripcic and fellow-travelers have to contend with the dichotomy that establishes between class distinctions which have nothing to do with the complexity, let alone "achievement" of any given culture. And it also ignores the accomplishment of Southern Afro-American music, which through blues and jazz transformed an entire branch of the humanities and allowed America to export the wildly successful successor genre of rock and roll throughout the entire world.

The insecurity that drives Liberals to constantly assert their cultural superiority is unseemly. And as phony as everything else about the poseur class on the Left. Even thick-skulled Hollywood types have been able to weasel in on the fun and turn it to their advantage. In order to be considered a person of brilliance and great compassion they simply suck up to some bullshit Lib cause. Nothing says "I'm a deep-thinking artiste" like getting the rubber stamp of approval from some shit-for-brains organization like Greenpeace or PETA. Blasting coke up your nose while smacking around strippers and driving 140 miles per hour is totally cool as long as you wear the right ribbon on your lapel.

Your presumption to reject the attribution of those words to Buckley unfortunately reveals not only your own ignorance, Peter, but an unwillingness to do your own homework.

Here is The Volokh Conspiracy writing about the quote in question. Ask Ann Althouse what she thinks of Eugene Volokh's credibility.

Volokh links to Bradford DeLong, who documents NR's unwillingness to confront an unsavory past that Buckley himself lacked such an unwillingness to confront, and subsequently, publicly renounced.

You are revealing yourself to be a rather poor historian if you are not only unwilling to investigate the link, but obviously lack even the slightest familiarity with it.

Further, ripcic's willingness to defend the idea stated in the quote (while simultaneously having the hubris to declare himself above racism!) shows that it's not too far-fetched a claim for a conservative defender of the status quo, in the South or elsewhere, to make.

I was a college student in the late sixties and I couldn't stand the hippies, the children who never wanted to grow up and face responsibility, who surrounded me. Parasites as far as I was concerned then and stayed that way by becoming perpetual students. Grad school, academia, tenure. Never having to take responsibility.

I too took a different route. I married and two days later said goodbye to my new husband and didn't see him again for almost 2 years. I gave birth to our son, and I waited and prayed he would come home from a combat zone in Vietnam, while my former friends had nothing better to do than sit around smoking dope and giving my generation a bad name so that the rest of us could barely get ourselves hired, even with a useless degree.

I came from an artistic family. My Grandmothers, both of them, were concert pianists, my Mother was an award winning writer, painter, and musician, when she wasn't busy being an Executive Director of a major organization, her day job that paid the bills. My Dad was a Civil Engineer who designed bridges. He said that designing something safe and functional that was also beautiful was his goal. But they were products of the Depression and neither would allow themselves the indulgence of pursuing their artistic bents before they had the money to provide a home and a solid nest egg for themselves and our family. I was taught that freedom is never free and to expect someone else to pay for my choices would brand me a Loser with a capital "L." I was taught the value of a dollar and the value of hard work and giving my best to whatever job, no matter how menial, if for no other reason than personal pride for a job well done. My parents and Grandparents despised FDR and the whole socialist agenda he had foisted on their country.

The day my husband came home from his 2nd tour of combat in VN, I had to stand by in shock as a bunch of filthy protesters dumped a trashcan of raw sewage over him. Something broke in me that day, I felt a deep and abiding hate that day and vowed that never again would I allow a bunch of lazy, shallow, scraggly unwashed perpetual kids to ruin the life I wanted to build for my family and children. So I'm with Rush.

When I was contemplating college applications, I put Berkeley, my Mother's alma mater, on my list. She put her foot down and said there was no way she was going to allow me to go there even though it was both her school and her brother's and she had grown up in the shadow of the campus and my Grandparents still lived there. I tried to get my Grandfather on my side by telling my Mom that I could live at their home while attending school and he would not hear of it. He thought I should go to a State College where I would be in constant contact with kids who came from working class backgrounds and who would value their educations rather than fritter the time away with selfish pursuits and who did nothing but spout philosophy at the expense of real experience that would prepare me for real life. I was taught from toddlerhood that the only thing life owed me was a fair day's pay for an honest day's labor, but the onus was on me to provide that honest day's work first. If I saved and invested wisely, made sure my bills were paid and there was money saved for the rainy day, then and only then could I pursue my creative side. Creativity was encouraged, but only after I was self-sufficient because to do less, would put my burden on someone else and that would make me a loser, no matter how much success I ultimately achieved.

This whole communist idea that the government should take care of you from the cradle to the grave comes right out of the mouths of those who never want to grow up. It makes me sick.

Because it's never an actual job to write, paint, or take photographs. In Rush's mind, artists have just got to be freeloaders.

The ones who require government support certainly are.

If you can earn a living doing what you love, congratulations! That's great! But you don't have a right to do that. If we all did what we loved and expected others to support us, society would collapse. There is a lot of unpleasant work that absolutely has to get done.

(threadjack)madawaskan, I can say it was a mistake to give women the vote because, among other things, the First Amendment protects my right to do so. You're perfectly free to disagree with me. Most people do.

Not every woman votes for the cutest guy or the one who'll do the most "for the children", but way too many of them think with their uteri.

Distinctions based on skin color are absurd, and it's quite a leap to go from having a problem with how women vote to how Blacks vote.

Universal suffrage is a noble ideal. You don't want to limit the vote to, say, property owners, because then you perpetuate an overclass, and you end up with a society of static classes where true freedom is not possible. OTOH, if you let everyone vote, the slackers will keep voting for more and more benefits subsidized by the producers, so you can end up in a death spiral. So far having a more-or-less educated and engaged population has kept us from that, up until this last election.

Now we're seeing the general population realize what they actually voted for, and that maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all.

BTW, I wouldn't argue for disenfranchising anyone at this point. The solution is better civic education for everyone.

Gosh, MUL, I wonder if I can come up with any damning racist quotes from Democrats. Senator Bird might be a good source, but Althouse doesn't allow the sort of language he would have used in her comments.

Then again, I'm not sure what such quotes would have to do with the point of the post.

You, dear readers, have been thread-jacked, a classic move by Ritzy Brassiere, formerly known as Montana Urban Legend (for you new to the Althouse blog, Ritzy changed his handle when the cumulative mass of stupidity and pretentiousness of his previous posts threatened to collapse on itself and form a black hole, right about the time that the whole AGW farce was blowing up in the faces of true believers like MUL).

A Ritzy thread-jack is a little like a Rick-roll, but with more condescension and pseudointellectual blather, and less blue-eyed soul.

Because assuming he was (and I assume he was), the point is that ripcic disagrees.

And then, Bella contested the evidence that Buckley even said anything worth later declaring to be wrong.

Of course, it's not hard to make a point when people aren't willing to forget so many points of basic knowledge. But hey, that's how it goes!

Even that barbarian asshole Pastafarian managed to fart his way into the thread by declaring that my motivation in changing my name had nothing, NOTHING whatsoever to do with preference or aesthetics or taste, and EVERYTHING to do with the esteem in which someone as dumb as he is holds me. And that's because he's a narcissistic dumbfuck who gets offended when anyone says anything with which he disagrees!!!

Of course, Trooper York knows the history that certain, slobbering shits don't, but as we can see, there are many here for whom the an interest in getting at the actual truth of the matter is THE MOST OFFENSIVE THING EVER!!!

Of course, it's not like I did anything other than respond to a bad point made by Synova. But the strongest exercise in brainpower that Masta Pasta ever knew was the stimulation he got from listening to a talentless twat like Rick Astley!

Poor Pasta sounds like he's two shades of unhinged away from a permanent stay in solitary confinement. To even consider the idea of intelligent conversation with someone so easily disturbed is about as intriguing a proposition as having tea with Jeffrey Dahmer. I mean, look at his fucking avatar for Chrissakes!

Ritzy, you just said: “I love the idea that responding effectively to ideas you disagree with constitutes a conversational hijacking.”

So let’s see how your Buckley quotes follow from the conversation, shall we?

Synova responded to your assertion that conservatives don’t understand “the fundamental nature of human culture”; and she said that human culture is popular culture, not economically unviable crosses floating in jars of piss. And she said of this sort of art:

“But it will get you awards and prizes from other people who want to prove they have more refined taste, are more cultured, and higher class.”

To which you responded:

”Right. Because I, not you, have been the one to introduce the idea of "more... refined" cultural tastes and distinctions of "class" into the discussion. Oh, wait...

Stop projecting, Synova. Or else I'll have to dig up W.F. Buckley quotes that defend Southern whites as being culturally "superior" to blacks.””

Seriously, where the hell did that even come from? What does this quote have to do with Synova’s point, or the point of this post?

And what exactly is your problem with my avatar photo? I’ll have you know that I’ve received compliments on my fashion courage, pairing the black socks and the loincloth. You just don’t have an appreciation for my art. Perhaps it’s a little too subtle for you.

But back to the point of the post, Ritzy: Do you think that the government should subsidize economically unviable art?

Americans who’ve made it need not feel guilty and those who haven’t make it need not feel entitled; It needn’t be Darwinian State/Nanny State, but somewhere in between. Compassionate folks must understand: Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America and the Soft part of our society can exist only if there is enough Hard part.

Ritzy, your curiosity about the turgidity of my penis, coupled with your fascination with bagoh20's testicles, is more than a little troubling.

I think that you need to get laid, dude. Or find a sheep that won't kick, whatever you people in Montana do. Live and let live, says I.

I've re-read those comments, and it seems clear that you had a little turd in your pocket (that Buckley quote), and you just couldn't wait to drop it into the punch bowl. I'm calling bullshit on your defense against threadjacking. And you and I both know, you're a serial threadjacker.

Peter Hoh: "Most of us a shielded from the real cost of health insurance, which is part of the reason that demand for reform has been fairly low."

Horzepoopy! I paid for my health insurance, without tax deductibility, for 40+ years. No shield that I ever say. Now I pay for my wife's (I'm on medicare and she's under 65.) Believe me, medicare is the first time I've been "shielded" from the cost of health insurance.

Now was the insurance a bad deal? No, it was not. It gave me the protection I needed for me and my family. But I paid for it.

Problem with Obamacare, people are not going to pay for it. Taxes on the so called rich will subsidize.

A large part of life is just work to pay the bills. Multimillionare Nancy Pelosi does not get that idea in the least.

Since it's not hard to guess your pet peeves, why don't we just make it easier for you and get to the obviously burning point in all this:

But back to the point of the post, Ritzy: Do you think that the government should subsidize economically unviable art?

I don't even have much of an opinion on this, but am actually sympathetic to Limbaugh being able to make the point. If you want me to say no, I'll say no, but only because I would phrase it by saying that an artist doesn't have some compelling right that I can see to expect that the government fund his work. On the other hand, I haven't noticed any tea parties sprouting up to protest the point that the government has appointed poet laureates. (Do they even receive funding?)

But how was this even the point of the post in the first place? Althouse says that Limbaugh is pissed off about hippies (which I assume she thinks is a ridiculous sentiment - and I agree), and that has become the point of his rant, rather than any real point about subsidies. (I also agree). You are reading too much into the post (or not enough?) by assuming that its point is to actually agree with Limbaugh's extraordinarily narrow point about subsidies in particular.

One would think this should end it, but just because I can't resist, and because my interpretation of your description of your fashion sense is a charitable (i.e. humorous) one that asks for a similarly charitable response, my other point was that Synova brought issues of class and superiority into the discussion. Before that, my only point about culture or art - absent the tangent with Bag O' had to do with whether it was economically viable. I made no assumptions of "superiority" or inferiority based on economic viability, and I had no idea why she read that into what I said, let alone proposed that I (or "liberals", whatever) was being highbrow in endorsing a supposedly "superior" sort of art (or other cultural pursuit) over any other.

And hence, I felt it appropriate to respond with a quote by Buckley that proved that the leader of the latest, politically viable incarnation of the conservative movement once thought quite differently. He actually felt that notions of superiority could be read into (artistic) expressions of culture. If any "liberals" did also, then Synova can provide quotes proving as much. But until she does, I just felt like responding to her unnecessarily, overly politicized and erroneous distraction (that "liberals" think the culture that they "approve of" is superior) with evidence that this was an assertion that not only went unaccompanied by evidence, but possibly compensated for something that she didn't want to acknowledge about conservatives, let alone the biggest damn conservative, the most influential conservative intellectual, in modern American political history.

There. I hope I didn't break anyone's bandwidth requirements but you honestly seemed to want an explanation for something that just seemed a bit more straightforward to me than it might have been to you. Sorry.

And as far as avatars go: I preferred your Woodsy Owl avatar. It had just the right blend of presumed wisdom and ecological self-righteousness.

About the only way you could have improved it is if you'd instead used that photo of the Native American with a single tear rolling down his cheek. Or if you'd put a feather head-dress on the owl, and photoshopped a tear in there. That would have been awesome.

The green eye thing: Is that a close-up of the green alien woman that Captain Kirk fracked? She was pretty hot, for being green, and another species and all. But I don't know if I'd make her eyeball my avatar. I'm sure that there's some hidden meaning to it that allows you to feel smug and superior, but to me, it just makes me think that you want to be fracked by Captain Kirk.

I'm calling bullshit on your defense against threadjacking. And you and I both know, you're a serial threadjacker.

Whatever, asshole. Had you simply possessed the self-control necessary to wait the 22 minutes it would have taken to receive honest answers to what seemed like honest, if naive, questions, then you would have got what you were looking for. Instead, you had to shoot your load and blow it on yet another premature conclusion.

I need to get laid?! Your style of participation just begs for sexual metaphors! And as for Bag O's nuts, he brought them up in the thread that defines whether or not his basic values include the likelihood of hanging on to them. And in his case, they don't. And in all honestly, most people would find that kind of funny. For a long time.

If you think that doesn't qualify for constant reminding, then apparently you're not too fond of your own balls, either. Read into that what you will. But seriously, to me and a lot of other folks that sounds funny. Not sexual. Funny.

Self-castration is funny - especially in the misguided, if consistently applied defense of one's own values. I mean, if you don't get that, then Cervantes was wasting his time.

NASCAR romances was a symbol... just like art is symbolic. And how did we get from NASCAR to racism?

Populism or my notions that exclusionary "art" that appeals to the most narrow segment of self-appointed cultural sophisticates does so precisely because of the exclusionary aspects of it and my insistence that the most skillful artist *always* appeals to common human experience that transcends cultures and generations, really is not that radical, is it?

my insistence that the most skillful artist *always* appeals to common human experience that transcends cultures and generations, really is not that radical, is it?

Yes it is. No human experience transcends culture. The only human experience that transcends the culture in which one was raised is the one witnessed in kids who were raised by wolves.

All the rest of us grew up among other human beings and were taught how to speak, how to behave, and even influenced in terms of what we think and believe by virtue of our interactions with other humans. That is what culture is. It is so pervasive that the only way to know for certain if we have transcended it in any meaningful, universalistic way is by learning how to communicate with the wolf-children and asking them.

And even wolves and other non-human social animals have their own form of culture.

That said, there are (human) cultural universals. Or at least, there are purported to be such things. But while people speak of transcending the boundaries between one culture and another, no one speaks of transcending culture itself. No human was ever successfully raised absent meaningful contact with some other living creature, and lived to tell about it.

Once that occurs, then we can speak of the idea of transcending culture in and of itself. Until then, a comparative study of correlates from culture to culture are at least as meaningful as any work of art that purports to transcend those boundaries in terms of its mere appeal.

Something can be very appealing and still tell us very little about what we didn't already want to believe about ourselves.

"Something can be very appealing and still tell us very little about what we didn't already want to believe about ourselves."

Art as medicine? Drink this, it's good for you?

But even accepting that, art that doesn't appeal to a broad audience says less than very little about what we didn't already want to believe about ourselves because whatever truth is spoken is spoken either to the air or the choir. Thus, as medicine, it fails.

The only thing at which it succeeds is polishing the egos of the elite.

If even a simple message about love or perseverance or gentleness or hope manages to come through one of those NASCAR romances, the NASCAR romance wins... even on the medicine scale.

"Something can be very appealing and still tell us very little about what we didn't already want to believe about ourselves."

Art as medicine? Drink this, it's good for you?

Glad to learn that you believe the quest for self-knowledge is good for you, Synova. Still, that's not the point. As Dr. Lecter would say, it's "incidental".

But even accepting that, art that doesn't appeal to a broad audience says less than very little about what we didn't already want to believe about ourselves because whatever truth is spoken is spoken either to the air or the choir. Thus, as medicine, it fails.

Well, again. I can't do much with this because you're just perpetuating your own (self-congratulatory?) point. It's not the one I (or anyone) made.

Incidentally, something can be good for someone and undergo widespread rejection. I seem to recall a scene in that popular piece of art known as "The Matrix" where Agent Smith informs Morpheus of the first utopian simulation of human existence which he designed, to disastrous effect.

The only thing at which it succeeds is polishing the egos of the elite.

Sounds like an opinion custom-designed to endear you to the egos of the populists.

If even a simple message about love or perseverance or gentleness or hope manages to come through one of those NASCAR romances, the NASCAR romance wins... even on the medicine scale.

Good art knows when a theme has become too repetitive to be useful, especially in a dialogue where critical interaction with an interlocutor is essential.

Unless, of course, you think of chronic masturbation as a form of art...

Here's the (supposedly elitist's) summary:

You think of art as serving only an aesthetic function and don't perceive one that affects the way things are perceived.

I think this goes against the experience of human history, where all art recognized as "good" fulfilled a function that was no less didactic than it was aesthetic.

But you can always go ahead and keep believing only what you always wanted to believe beforehand. I think the sociologist's word for such behavior is "prejudiced".

Let's tell them that if Obamacare passes then they can't smoke weed anymore or drop acid or snort crack or shoot up or anything because these things are not healthy for you and Obamacare will forbid people from doing unhealthy things.

"Hippies" is just another euphemism for "baby boomers" which is yet another euphemism for this HUGE pile of humanity born between the years 1946 to 1964.

If there is a "problem", it's that the size of our group may have had an undue influence on economics and culture. We were "catered to" by politicians (of both stripes) and marketers as well, but here's the big question:

Did we all vote in lock step? Did we all buy the same things? Did all of us spend and take and none of us save and make? The resounding answer is "HELL NO!"

My 76 year old father tells me that prior to Nixon's wage and price controls many people in white collar jobs received no employee paid health care. The health care benefit was a way to increase compensation without increasing wages. He says unions demanded the benefit too.

Obamacare will forbid people from doing unhealthy thingsMore likely, it will determine who is prone to expensive diseases and send them free heroine.

Roux, it was the wage controls during WWII that started the whole employer-provided benefits trend. That, and the fact they're not taxable for the employee.

Individual, high deductible insurance was cheap (under $40/month) until I neared 40. It then quadrupled in about 4 years before Mutual of Fucking Omaha pulled out of the state market, citing rising costs, two months after I made my first claim.

Perhaps you'd get farther, Ritmo, if you stopped trying to make this about me and said what you think that art is for or even attempted to support your romantic notions that conservatives somehow don't understand it.

But I get it. I do. It's important for you that conservatives don't get art, because it means that you do get art. It plays into a liberal self-image of greater capacity and depth than other people have.

In order to have greater depth and greater capacity, someone else has to have less... thus conservatives serve a purpose for you.

Which I pointed out. But art really is not there as a service for people who want to bolster their self-image of being more cultured than other people. Still, it does explain the heat in response to a "populist" suggestion that maybe the masses aren't culturally illiterate at all.

Roux: My experiences were quite different from your father's. The company I worked for then provided health insurance, it was becoming a competitive benefit in the search for new employees and not only in scarce skill fields; I'm 3-years younger than your Dad.

Nixon's wage freeze lasted for two months and do not recall that as your Dad recalled it; a friend got a raise on Friday, mine was due Monday got put on hold 2-months; Nixon spoke on Sunday. Do not recall any Nixonian factor on so-called fringe employee benefits.

My employer not only provided health insurance but life insurance, "free" for the white collar full time employee, with payable options for family coverage. In the same company Unions could have had benefits different from white collar salaried, white collar wage could have varied too. Remember union contacts usually define union member benefits.

Lastly, a few companies were not competitive in their hiring practices, perhaps those were the cone your Dad recalled as being frugal.

Don't make any person who wants to start a business some vague creative worthy of disdain. Owning your own business is the backbone dream of the US - creative or not. And you should be able to get some damn healthcare at a comparable rate.

How does this have anything to do with "conservatives"? How does this have anything to do with you, specifically? You know, elitism and populism are labels not specifically wedded to any location on the political spectrum, Synova. Conservatives use them, either one of them, as much as "progressives" do. They use them to suit their own purposes.

Second, I don't see the point in the use of "cultured" as an adjective. Certainly not in a comparative or quantitative sense. Someone doesn't like someone else's sense of taste, that's fine. To each their own. Maybe you'd best read up on the section of the thread where I debate the nature of opinions with Bag O' (Here's a hint: he thinks that they can/should be universalized and subject to rational analysis; I recoil from this notion and prefer to see them as usually individual and necessarily subjective. Brain teaser: which of those approaches do you think is more easily given to "ranking" someone on a pecking order on account of their tastes? Oh well, nevermind). Perhaps it might come as a surprise to you that I don't typically take offense to someone's tastes differing from my own, let alone differing from any bullshit "elite" standard.

Stop projecting.

I might, on occasion, make fun of someone's tastes as an indicator of something else pertaining to their personality, but that has nothing to do with elitism. Ridicule doesn't necessarily just serve to reinforce some authority structure or pecking order - at least not in my book. Maybe in your book it does, but not in mine. Some things are just funny and that's the extent of it.

So, having addressed all your pet peeves and social grievances, one would think it a not very complicated point to assert that the value of art lies not only in a "natural" aesthetic appeal - (whatever we mean by "natural"), but in its ability to shape and/or change and/or challenge perceptions. Apparently you disagree. You seem to think that the only standard for judging art should be restricted to its capacity to dazzle and delight the senses. That's fine. We can disagree, and I don't really care. But I do think it's funny that I wouldn't be surprised, based on that, to find you shopping for silly or gawdy little tea sets on The Home Shopping Network someday, reacting with wonderment at the incredible craftsmanship with which they were designed. Call it elitism, if it makes you feel better. But I refuse to believe that technical mastery of a medium alone makes an artist or their works "great", and neither do a whole bunch of people at any income level.

If you want to reduce expression to a technician's game, and strip it of the value based on an appraisal of any original ideas it advanced or changed perceptions it allowed for, and call it "accessible enough to merit blue-collar approval", go ahead. But that's not art; that's simply a social statement conveniently yoked to eye candy for the sake of eye (or ear) candy itself, with nothing more to show for it other than the dollar earned (or not) for... you guessed it, peddling candy.

Well that is the question isn't it. Why did you think this had anything to do with conservatives? This is what I initially responded to: (Which was not a response to me, so the "you" is someone else.)

"Thank God that human nature, human curiosity, and human expression is more varied and infinite than you or Rush Limblown will ever grasp - despite his attempts to try to do so. It is why after 4 decades, decadent conservative political dominance is finally failing, and it's starting right here at its epicenter in the "culture war" that they declared and fought so valiantly until finding out, oh so quixotically, that they lacked much understanding of the fundamental nature of human culture in the first place."

As for buying kitsch crap on the home shopping network... if it were ethnic kitsch crap or ancient kitsch crap the usual suspects would be looking down their noses at anyone who dared vocalize their lack of appreciation for "art".

As for what is actually on my walls... my mother is an artist so I have originals on my walls.

The hand blown art glass, however, is in my sock drawer because we have cats.

And I feel dirty for even going this far to defend my own personal taste in art to you because it is utterly irrelevant what I think is disastrous and what I think is incredible.

And I still don't know why you thought this had anything to do with conservatives.

there is a simple way to solve being tied to a job you dont like because of health insurance. Get rid of employeer provided health insurance plans (they only came in in WWII asa way around govt controlled caps on pay. Everyone buys his own policy, and you cant kick someone off because they get sick,

I live in SF and fully identify with Rush's distaste for hippies. Hippies suck, even more than hipsters. At least hipsters don't adhere to a philosophy that preaches equality and practices elitism. I hate these MFers (mostly young kids from the Midwest) who come to SF dreaming of a life of peace, love, and parasitism.

Most all of the original hippies have moved on, having become aware that the world doesn't owe them shit and that they have to work for the things they value. The hippies today deserve little more than a kick in the teeth. What pisses me off most are these 20-something "hippies" asking me for change on the street. Yeah, I get it, you think you're morally superior because you don't work for "The Man." But really you're a fucking leech, capable of contributing to society but locked in a mindset of selfishness and self-importance. I readily give my dollars to the old homeless, broken down by years of abuse and hard-living, but I hate these fucking kids, scions of the middle class, who have the ability to work but don't (and end up taking "sympathy dollars" that should go to the truly needy). Really, your fucking designer hippie-wear costs more than what I'm wearing--how dare you preach against capitalism? Oh, and why is it that these fucking leeches always have puppies, but never adult dogs? Do they fucking eat the puppies when they're no longer cute? And what kind of wastrel takes on a puppy when he can't even feed himself? To put it simply, people who are more image-conscious than the most shallow Hollywood once-was and wannabe. Oh, Hippies, how I loathe thee.

I hate these MFers (mostly young kids from the Midwest) who come to SF dreaming of a life of peace, love, and parasitism.

Well. They are from the Midwest after all. So you can't really blame them for being that way after being raised in an environment filled with people who only have vapid, friendly smiles to offer and no substance to show for it.

where the heck is everybody getting this idea that health care will be free, so that 'lazy' people can just kick back ?! it's my understanding that we will ALL be forced to BUY government insurance...that's not my definition of 'free'.

And while we're at it, we need to defund most of the government subsidies of "art" and "journalism". Government has no business in America financing these elements.

America is a land where anything is possible if you're shrewd enough to recognize and seize and opportunity and then work hard to obtain it. That is why American art was so much better than any art coming out of the world. It was a powerful expression in a wilderness of hard knocks. Rugged individualism.As soon as the government started doling out grants, American art became soft and phony, like a Laurie Anderson show.And we all know what a sham gov't sponsored "journalism" is. The ultimate obscenity is PBS doing a report on the art of Laurie Anderson.Rush has nailed it again. The hippies are trying to take over our country and they must be stopped.

The man shoots the breeze for three hours a day. That's not work. That's what retired people do in the Midwest. When it's cold out, they sit and sip coffee in the diner. When it's nice out, they sit on a bench in the courthouse square.

Nobody ever gets paid just for talking. Barbers and bartenders chitchat, but you pay them for cutting your hair or pouring you a drink. The babble is gratuitous.

Individual, high deductible insurance was cheap (under $40/month) until I neared 40.

Have you ever heard of the "bathtub curve"?

Adults between 20 and 40 tend not to need medical treatment. Once you turn 40, however, the first signs of aging show up. Check the birthdates of people in the obituary section. Adults start dying off at age 40, unless they are accident or homicide victims.

"Now, I think it's really important that under the current system, for health insurance reasons alone, people stay put in jobs instead of moving freely and efficiently into work that would be better for them."

You went off the rails right here. For anyone without a significant pre existing condition, this is not much of an issue. You can get your own major medical insurance.

But often, you can not move efficiently into work 'you love'. You move inefficiently and don't make much money... because you’re not doing something the economy rewards (re: wants). You’re goofing off while the rest of us go to work and do actual real work... and to pay for the medical care of goof off poets and artists.....